


Something In Your Eyes (I'd Like To Meet)

by Kangofu_CB, QueenoftheRandomWord42



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Anal Sex, Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson Friendship, Drinking, I don't really have any excuses for this, M/M, NSFW Art, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Nurses, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark Friendship, Stucky AU Big Bang, Theatre, and a drag show, and dancing, art embedded in the fic, by a bad man who gets his, in Mobile Alabama, there is one (1) homophobic slur in this fic, there's a conference, yes I did combine the two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 13:53:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17940953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangofu_CB/pseuds/Kangofu_CB, https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenoftheRandomWord42/pseuds/QueenoftheRandomWord42
Summary: Bucky was on vacation.He was in Mobile, Alabama for the only reason he assumed anyone could possibly want to be there - to drink. He wasn’t there to be a nurse - he was barely there to attend a nursing conference - he was there to see his best friend/platonic soulmate Natasha, and he was there to drink.He wasn’t there to save sweaty hotel employees or gorgeous blond haired men.He definitely wasn’t there to fall in love.





	Something In Your Eyes (I'd Like To Meet)

**Author's Note:**

> First, thanks to the Mods for organizing and executing this Bang! I had a lot of fun writing this fic, and I had a great art partner in QueenoftheRandomWord42. Her creations are embedded within the fic below, and she did a truly tremendous job, despite pinch hitting for me and the time constraints! 
> 
> Second, all persons, real or imagined, who appear in this fic, are purely not coincidental, and some events did take place in real life, and I am very sorry. 
> 
> Third, all nursing knowledge is accurate, and all theater knowledge is accurate to the best of my ability to pick someone else's brain.

# Something in Your Eyes (I’d Like to Meet)

 

Bucky deeply, deeply regretted ever choosing _Firework_ as his phone’s ringtone.  

 

At the time, it had seemed like a good choice. Distinctive, guaranteed to wake him up if he was late for a shift or his mom called, on Billboard’s Top Ten the week he graduated from the hell that was nursing school.  He’d changed it a half-dozen times over the years, especially when Sam had started giving him absolute hell because _no one_ \- except possibly Bucky’s _mother_ \- had a personalized ringtone on their cell phone anymore.  Most people never even turned their phones off of the vibrate setting.  Still, Bucky always came back to Katy Perry. It was familiar. Comfortable.  Reminded him of the sense of pride and accomplishment he’d had when he’d walked across the stage and accepted his (fake) diploma.

 

Except right now, with the sun streaming through a forgotten crack in his blackout curtains, directly into his face and the song blaring at full volume while his phone merrily rattled its way across his nightstand and headed for the floor.

 

Right now, he hated it with the fire of a thousand suns.

 

He wanted to ignore it.  Bucky desperately wanted to ignore the phone and go the fuck back to sleep, but his Do Not Disturb settings meant that _whoever_ was calling him was either on his very short list of important people, or work.

 

Bucky groped for the eight hundred dollar phone - and what even the fuck why did phones cost so goddamn much - barely snagging it with the tips of his fingers and succeeding only in knocking it immediately to the floor, where it continued to tell him he could _shoot across the sky, sky, sky._

 

He swore as he shuffled across the sheets and stretched, finally managing to wrap his fingers around the phone and swipe to accept.

 

“‘Lo,” he mumbled, dropping back down onto his pillows, his face half-mashed into the navy cotton.

 

“GUESS FUCKING WHAT?”  Natasha’s voice screeched directly into his eardrums, sharp like an ice pick shoved into his frontal lobe, and Bucky dropped the phone in self-defense. Instead of putting it back to his ear and risking permanent injury, he hit the speakerphone icon.

 

“What the _fuck_ , Nat?” He groaned as he mashed the heels of his hands into his eyes in an effort to both wake the hell up and rub the ground glass feeling out of his eyelids.

 

There was a half second of silence over speaker before Nat’s voice came back at a significantly lower volume.  “It’s two o'clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday, Barnes, why are you sleeping?”

 

Bucky sighed.  God, he had not had enough sleep for this.  “I picked up some night shifts for extra cash.  I just went to sleep like, three fuckin’ hours ago.”

 

Natasha made a noise of disgust.  

 

Bucky and Natasha had been friends for nearly ten years now.  They met midway through nursing school, where both of them were teetering dangerously on the edge of failing obstetrics - not a single male student had _ever_ passed Dr. Moore’s OB class with anything higher than an 80, mostly because pregnant patients had less than zero interest in letting a male student anywhere _near_ any aspect of their body, and Natasha's resting bitch face and absolute intolerance for what she described as ‘over-dramatic wailing’ meant that no pregnant patients wanted _her_ anywhere near them either.  They had banded together to scrape through the class, Bucky with a record-setting 81, Natasha with a slightly more respectable 85, and continued to be friends afterwards, studying together and keeping each other awake with copious amounts of coffee and strategically timed phone calls and texts.  Natasha had lived in a small apartment close to school, and Bucky had eventually lost count of the number of nights he’d unintentionally fallen asleep there, either studying or post-clinical.

 

After graduation, both of them had gone to work in the same medical ICU for three years before Bucky had moved on to cardiovascular ICU and Nat to neuro.  

 

Bucky had spent his entire first year in CV on nights, a year of his life which was now a blur of jumbled impressions and frighteningly absent memories of his commute home.  Natasha, on the other hand, had done just six weeks of night shifts their second year out of school because the unit had been offering a two thousand dollar bonus, and, after she had nearly wrecked her car driving _two miles_ to her apartment, she’d vowed to never again work nights.  Which was how she had ended up in neuro in the first place.

 

“Why do you need extra cash?” Natasha finally asked, sounding suspicious.

 

“Because I owe the United States government the monetary equivalent of my left arm, Natasha.  Why are you calling?”

 

Student loans were the devil’s work, in Bucky’s opinion.

 

“Oh! So, I have a fantastic idea.  You’re going to love it.”

 

Which meant, of course, that Bucky was not going to love it.  He grunted in response, and reached to fluff his pillows up behind his back so that he could at least lean comfortably while Natasha talked him into yet another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea.

 

Natasha was his _best_ friend.  A title she had held for nearly the entirety of their friendship, despite the fact that she’d _abandoned_ him two years ago to move to fuckin’ Atlanta, of all places, because of Sam Fucking Wilson.

 

Sam Wilson, who had been the Master Electrician at Houston’s Alley Theatre when Nat met him at some hospital-sponsored theater event that Bucky hadn’t even _gone_ to almost five years ago.  It had been lust at first sight on Nat’s part, and possibly love on Wilson’s, and when Sam had been offered a position at the Alliance, Nat had followed him there to work at Emory Medical Center.

 

Which was not, Bucky reminded her as often as possible, as prestigious as her old unit two floors above his.

 

“The Southeastern Theatre Conference is in Mobile this year,” Natasha said, as though that meant anything to Bucky.

 

“And?” he asked, feeling his eyelids drooping.

 

“And,” she continued, “there is also an Emergency slash Critical Care Nursing conference the same week.”  She paused expectantly, like Bucky was supposed to make some sort of connection that his exhausted, sleep-deprived brain absolutely was not going to accomplish.  When he didn’t respond as expected, she sighed the sigh of the deeply disappointed.

 

“Mobile is only six hours from Houston,” she pointed out, “and it’s four and a half from Atlanta.  The Alliance is paying for Sam’s room for the entire week - well, Wednesday through Monday - so you can just drive down and meet us and we can hang out for the weekend, get some CEUs, drink the natives under the table. Just like old times.”

 

Bucky blinked slowly.  “You want to - what? Party in Mobile, _Alabama_ for a weekend?  What are we going to do in _Mobile_? Besides get required education hours.”

 

Natasha snorted.  “First of all, it’s a free trip.  We can get a double and all it will cost you is gas and drinking money, and you get to _see me_.”

 

Which, okay, that was a fair point.

 

“Second of all, we managed to have a good time in _nursing school_ \- I’m sure we can manage to entertain ourselves in a smallish city with a handful of bars.”

 

That was also a fair point.  No matter how broke, tired, or burned out Bucky had felt, Natasha had always managed to come up with just the right thing to help him relax and have a good time.  Or end up with him showing up to class hungover as all hell, but she’d taken notes for him when that happened, so it evened out. Natasha herself never seemed to get hungover, regardless of how much she drank.

 

But-

 

“I am absolutely _not_ sharing a hotel room with you and Wilson.  I don’t hate myself that much.” He thought about it for a few seconds.  “What’s presenting at the conference? You think I can get paid education hours for it? Or maybe Miguel would pay for me to go?”

 

Natasha laughed.  “Yeah, right. They aren’t going to pay for you to go to a conference.  The subject matter looks good though. Transplant, trauma, ECMO. I’ll send you a link.”

 

*

 

 _Take that, Romanov_ , Bucky thought as he walked out of Miguel’s office.

 

She’d been right in that the hospital was absolutely not going to pay for him to go to the conference - it wasn’t hospital required education.  But he had managed to convince Miguel, his unit director, to pay him for the two-day conference, instead of having to take vacation time. In exchange, Bucky would present on what he learned when he got back to work.

 

Basically, Bucky was getting a paid vacation, and all he had to do was sit through a few presentations for two days.  

 

It totally justified him getting his own hotel room.  Not that he wouldn’t have anyway, but now it felt more like a reward to himself than a dent in his wallet.

 

He texted Nat the news, requesting her hotel booking information so he could try and get a room near theirs.

 

_Don’t bother, we booked you the adjoining room already.  You can Venmo me._

 

Bucky snorted as he walked down the hallway, already texting her back.  

 

“Hey Barnes!”

 

Bucky looked up at the sound of his name, to see Clint Barton, respiratory therapist and all-around pretty good guy, grinning at him.

 

“I got parameters on your patient in 32,” the tall, blond man said.

 

Clint had taken up resident bestie status since Nat left, continuing the fine tradition of Margarita Sundays and leftover post-shift pizza.  Bucky was still out in the ‘burbs, where he’d lived since nursing school, but Clint lived in the medical center area and biked to work. He had a great view of both downtown and the med center, where they spent many a night sitting on his balcony drinking beer and talking.  

 

Truthfully, they had tried to have a serious relationship, back when Clint was new on the unit and Bucky was lonely as hell in Natasha’s absence, but it hadn’t worked out.  Not only was it fucking impossible to work with someone you were, well, fucking, but Clint was also hopelessly clueless about anything that looked even remotely like a relationship.  Clint Barton wouldn’t know romance if it bit him in the ass. He was perfectly happy to spend their evenings together, and hours having sex, but the slightest gesture of affection from Bucky left him baffled.

 

Maybe other people would have been happy with that, but Bucky had always secretly liked a bit of romance in his love life, someone to woo and be sweet on.

 

Clint was fun in the bedroom, but they were better off as friends.

 

“Yeah?” Bucky asked. “We gonna take the tube out?”

 

Clint snorted.  “Numbers are good but Dr. Bhatt is on today, so I doubt it.  You know he doesn’t wanna extubate anybody. Ever.”

 

Clint was not wrong.  Dr. Bhatt was a bit of an anomaly in the ICU.  He wasn’t assertive, aggressive, or even particularly knowledgeable.  Bucky could only assume he’d kept his job simply because he’d been part of the unit for so long they _couldn’t_ get rid of him.  He was Bucky’s least favorite doc to work with, in fact, because it was impossible to get him to do anything.  Even emergencies couldn’t galvanize the man to action. The staff simply learned to work around him - either by going to one of the nurse practitioners or by making the kind of suggestion that seemed like it was Dr. Bhatt’s idea.  

 

Bucky had gotten pretty good at making suggestions.

 

“Fine by me,” Bucky shrugged, “you know I like ‘em best intubated and sedated.  Talking patients are the _worst_.”

 

Clint laughed.

 

It was a joke, but at the same time it wasn’t.  Bucky loved being a nurse. It was one of those fields that was perpetually changing, which meant every day was a challenge and it was never dull.  He didn’t do well behind a desk, he’d learned after his first degree, and he enjoyed learning new things and applying his knowledge. He liked to be the best at what he did, and nursing allowed for that continual growth and strive for perfectionism.

 

All of that was good.

 

Taking care of critically ill patients, managing their care, adjusting drips and anticipating problems and working to prevent or correct them - all of that was _great_.  Bucky was good at that, too.

 

And, he _could_ be a people person.  He could cut up and crack jokes and make nice with families.  He could explain things in ways that made sense and educate people on their diagnoses and care. He liked to teach, whether it was patients or families or other nurses.

 

What he couldn’t do, though, was cater to entitled shitheads, and thanks to the current medical model, that’s what he did a lot of if his patients were awake.  When they were awake, they wanted impossible things, and they wanted them _right now_.  It really didn’t matter if the patient next door was coding - they just wanted their goddamn jello.

 

So Bucky - and most ICU nurses he knew - preferred his patients intubated, sedated, and unconscious.

 

In the end, they did extubate the patient, and it was just about as bad as Bucky could have predicted.  Sometimes people surprised him - they woke up and they were pleasant and cooperative and understanding of the situation.  And other times they were not.

 

It was a decidedly _not_ situation.

 

By the time Bucky’s twelve hour shift ended, he was exhausted, his head and feet were throbbing, and he wanted to commit legitimate murder.

 

“Happy hour?” Clint asked sympathetically as they were clocking out.

 

“God, yes,” Bucky groaned.  

 

He was really looking forward to his vacation.

 

*

 

“I’m going to die in the backwoods of Louisiana, dragged off by swamp fairies, never to be seen again, _and it is all your fault_ ,” Bucky hissed into Nat’s voicemail.

 

The six hour drive from Houston to Mobile was crawling along at hour seven-and-a-half and he still had roughly two hours to go.  Or he thought he had two hours to go - it was hard to tell because he was so far into the middle of Swamp Nowhere that his GPS was blinking ‘searching for route’, he had one cellphone bar that periodically went out, and even the radio was nothing but hissing static.

 

Bucky kept passing abandoned cars on the side of the highway and for the fucking life of him he could not figure out why.  Who were these people who just left their vehicles on the side of the two-lane highway in bum fucked nowhere. Where did they go? The cars didn’t even look like they were in bad shape or anything.

 

Fucking swamp fairies, he was convinced.

 

Bucky had spent his childhood in Brooklyn and then his adolescent years in Indiana, when his mom had moved him and his sister back to her hometown after his dad died, and he was equally familiar with both weird urban legends and small town cryptids.  This definitely fell into cryptid category.

 

And now Natasha wasn’t picking up her phone.

 

Neither was Sam.

 

Which meant they were probably fucking.

 

And that was fine, because Bucky was still nearly three goddamn hours from the hotel and the sweet relief of alcohol, but at least he wasn’t listening to them fuck through the walls.  He was sure he had plenty of that to look forward to over the next four days.

 

“Goddammit, Romanov,” he muttered, and switched his audiobook back on.

 

He’d actually bought three for the trip - twenty-two hours worth of entertainment, enough for the drive down and back - except he’d only downloaded the first book and it was _awful_.  And now the only thing available to him.

 

Fucking fairies.

 

*

 

Mobile, when he arrived, was as unimpressive as he’d expected.  

 

Actually, the lights on the buildings were kind of cool-looking, but he’d lived in Houston for years, and he was more than used to impressive light shows on buildings, and he was way too irritated with the ten hour drive to be interested in the city’s architecture.  The GPS had finally started working again about an hour outside of the city, and now he was doing his exhausted best to follow its instructions around unfamiliar landmarks to the hotel he was staying at.

 

There was, Nat had informed him, a parking garage a few blocks from the hotel where Bucky could park for much less expense than the hotel parking, but Bucky was tired. He felt gross, and he wanted nothing more than to change clothes and get very, very drunk.  Trying to find parking and wrestling his suitcase to an unfamiliar location was very low on his priority list.

 

He’d pay for the fucking valet, he didn’t even care anymore.

 

Putting his car in park outside of the hotel, Bucky texted Natasha that he had finally, God have mercy, arrived.  He was lifting his suitcase onto the curb when both she and Sam walked out of the doors, still no sign of the valet attendant.

 

“I see the swamp fairies didn’t abduct you after all, James.”

 

Natasha smiled warmly, but Sam looked him over from head to toe, judgemental and frowning.

 

“Dude,” the other man said, “what the hell are you wearing?”

 

“Whatever the fuck I want,” Bucky retorted, but both of them were grinning. Natasha rolled her eyes, but her lips were quirked into something that Bucky recognized as amusement.

 

Sam and Bucky only ever gave each other shit.  It was how their friendship functioned on a basic level.  Bucky knew, deep down, that if he really needed Sam for something, the other man would be there for him in a heartbeat.  He was one of those true blue friends. Bucky also knew that Sam recognized Bucky’s deep discomfort with showing his real feelings in anything other than snarky remarks and gallows humor, and allowed him to be the way he was.

 

In all fairness, however, Bucky was currently rocking joggers and a grey tank top that said _I’d Hit This_ in bold, white letters.  

  
It was not his best look.

 

“Cut me some slack,” Bucky added, just the slightest bit defensive, “I just drove ten hours and survived swamp fairies to see your ass, you could at least be grateful.”

 

“Man, shut the hell up.”  Sam pulled him in for a back-slapping hug that eased Bucky’s stress levels more than he wanted to admit.

 

“James,” Natasha smirked up at him when they stepped back, which made Bucky roll his eyes.  Other than his Ma, Nat was the one person who insisted on calling him by his given name, and his mother only did it when she was reading him the riot act.

 

Natasha leaned up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek in greeting, before looping her arms through both his and Sam’s, leaving Bucky to pull his suitcase along with his other arm.  “I’m glad you came. Hurry up and get changed so we can go out. There are a surprising number of bars to visit.”

 

Bucky exchanged his car keys for a room key at the desk, the receptionist rushing to assure him that his vehicle would be well taken care of, and then he continued to be dragged along by Natasha to his room.  

 

The hotel was nice - one of the nicest in Mobile, according to what Bucky had googled - done up in some kind of vintage art-deco style, with sweeping staircases and chandeliers that made him think of the 1920s.  Their rooms were on the sixth floor, with a view of what passed for downtown in a city with less than two hundred thousand residents, compared to the two million Bucky was used to in Houston. It was quiet, actually, much quieter than he’d expected given the number of theater conference plus nursing conference attendees.

 

Then again, it was nearly ten o’clock on a Wednesday night.

 

Not that it mattered - he was sure he and Natasha would be able to find trouble anyway, even with Sam along for the ride. Weekends meant next to nothing to nurses, given their erratic schedules.

 

Bucky quickly changed into jeans and t-shirt, throwing a leather jacket on over the ensemble.  In the bathroom he splashed his face with cold water and finger combed his hair into some semblance of order.  It was at that awkward stage of long enough to tuck behind his ears but not long enough to put up, and Bucky wasn’t convinced this growing it out thing he’d decided to do was worth it.  

 

 

Shrugging, he knocked on the door between their rooms. Sam opened it with Natasha nowhere in sight.  Bucky assumed she was freshening up in the bathroom.

 

“How do you do that?” Sam asked, frowning.  “You looked like a hobo ten minutes ago.”

 

Bucky shrugged and grinned.  “Talent.”

 

Natasha came out of the bathroom and, sure enough, the wings on her eyeliner were sharp enough to kill a man.  “Let’s go. Sam and I did some recon last night. I found a bar you’ll like.”

 

They wound up at The Haberdasher, some kind of craft cocktail bar that was, Bucky had to admit, exactly the sort of place he loved.  There was a kitchen, Natasha reassured him on the walk over, which was good because all he’d had since lunch on the drive over was powerade and sunflower seeds.

 

They’d missed the kitchen closing time by ten minutes.

 

“It’s fine,” Bucky waved Sam and Natasha’s concern and apologies off.  “I’ll order room service when we get back or stop at a food truck or something.  No worries.”

 

It was not fine.

 

Or what Bucky remembered of it _was_ fine, but on Thursday morning he, Bucky, was not fine.

 

He groaned as he rolled over in bed to silence the insistent buzzing of the alarm on his phone.  It was 0830, which meant he had an hour and a half to be presentable for attending one of the very few conference presentations he absolutely had to show up at.  This morning’s adventure was in solid organ transplant, and since his unit did more heart and lung transplants than any other program in Texas, it was kind of important that he be there.

 

Bucky sat up in bed and felt his stomach roll and the pounding in his head increase and thought he might die.

 

Of course, Natasha chose that exact moment to breeze into his room, through the connecting door that Bucky was certain he’d locked, looking as fresh as a daisy and clearly laughing at his expense.

 

Luckily, she also had a very tall tumbler of water and a handful of pills for him.

 

“Shower,” she ordered, shoving him towards the bathroom.  “You’ll feel better once you do, and the meds will have time to kick in.  Then we can go get breakfast.”

 

Bucky physically felt himself go green.  “Please, don’t even mention food.”

 

Standing under the hot spray, Bucky did his level best not to hurl as he scrubbed himself down with hotel soap and shampoo since he hadn’t had the foresight to unpack his toiletry bag before going out last night.

 

Last night, God.  Drinking… many - he wasn’t sure how many, but more than a couple - of Moscow Mules plus at least two shots of Fireball on a completely empty stomach was one of his worse ideas to date.  He remembered, what? Arriving at the bar, snagging a table from a group of dude-bros who hadn’t seemed to know what to do with the plethora of theater conference attendees - easily identifiable by the fact that about half of them were singing songs he recognized from Broadway and the other half were throwing lines back and forth at one another, and _all_ of them were wearing SETC tags around their necks.  

 

Bucky hadn’t seen a single, identifiable nurse - he and Nat would sure as _fuck_ not be wearing whatever sort of tags the nursing conference gave them out to the bar - but Sam had explained that the majority of the SETC conference attendees were there in the hopes of finding a job.  Either auditioning for various theatre groups, or looking for internship positions in technical fields. They _wanted_ to be identified. This was, in fact, why Sam was there.  He would be spending most of the conference interviewing candidates for The Alliance’s summer internship program, and the rest of his time manning their booth. There were also, apparently, several commercial companies represented, everything from lighting to makeup, along with live demonstrations, several student competitions, and product sales.  

 

It sounded a lot less boring than the nursing conference Bucky was here to attend, which would, at best, have bagels and pitiful coffee available.

 

When Bucky shambled back into his room in a towel, hair dripping down his back, Natasha had made herself at home on his now neatly-made bed, browsing the internet on her phone.  She, unlike most nurses he knew, could actually manage to dress herself appropriately in business casual, and to look at her you’d never know she’d helped close the bar down last night.  Her blouse and trousers were perfectly pressed, and a green cardigan was tossed over the armchair, under which she’d left a pair of metallic flats. She wiggled her bare toes at him as he stared, dragging his attention back to her still-amused face.

 

“I hate you,” he grumbled, reaching for his suitcase which she had helpfully placed on the luggage rack from his miniscule closet.

 

“You love me,” she argued, standing smoothly.  “Give me your clothes and I’ll iron them while you brush your teeth.

 

He handed off navy slacks and a striped shirt before stepping into boxer briefs that he tugged up under his towel.

 

Bucky was halfway through brushing his teeth and being very careful not to gag himself with his toothbrush when he realized-

 

“Did I make friends with a hooker?” he asked, around a mouthful of toothpaste.

 

Natasha threw back her head and laughed. “Sex worker,” she corrected.  “And yes, I believe so. Apparently her name was Cindy - which, sounds fake, but ok - and she was a sorority sister.  Or she told you that she was in a sorority at some point. I think she thought you were going to be a good time, but you’re too gay for that.”

 

Bucky was very, very much too gay for that.

 

But he did have a hazy memory of sitting next to a pretty blonde in a short dress at the bar.  There had been… he thought about it. There had been an old guy talking to her and Bucky thought he’d been bothering her, but in retrospect, maybe not.  

 

Oops.

 

She hadn’t seemed too upset at him in his memories, though, so he let it go.

 

Natasha passed him his now-wrinkle-free clothes through the sliding bathroom door.

 

“What’s on the agenda for today?” he asked, threading his belt through the loops.

 

“Transplant seminar this morning,” she answered, “and then that thing on toxic ingestions, lunch, and neurotrauma this afternoon.”

 

Bucky wrinkled his nose.  He was _not_ going to a neurotrauma presentation.  He preferred people’s brains to stay inside their skulls, thanks very much.  Also, why was poisoning immediately before lunch? Who had planned this symposium?

 

Nat laughed again.  “Sam is free after 2:00, if you want to skip out on the trauma discussion.  I know you have a thing about that. You can window shop.”

 

He couldn’t imagine that Sam wanted to _window shop_ of all things, but it was nice of her to offer him an out.  “I like people to keep their insides on the inside. It’s not a thing, it’s just common sense.”

 

“Says the man who gets _excited_ when the docs decide to do chest washouts at the bedside instead of in the O.R.”

 

That was… very true, but not the point.  Bucky shrugged. “Keeps life interesting.”

 

“I happen to find traumatic brain injuries very interesting,” Natasha retorted, picking up her sweater and slipping her feet into her shoes.  “Let’s go - we’re going to be late.”

 

The bright March sunshine was just as painful as Bucky had expected it to be, despite his sunglasses, and despite the heavy duty pain and nausea medication Natasha had given him before his shower.  It was piercing and unrelenting and the fucking birds were singing, making a mockery of his suffering.

 

Bucky hated everything.

 

Except for the venti coffee and scone that he ducked into a corner coffee shop and bought on their way to the nursing conference.  He didn’t hate those - they contained all three of the most important food groups: sugar, carbs, and caffeine.

 

He hated them even less once he saw the sad selection of weak-ass coffee and nearly-stale bagels on the conference tables near the sign in.  

 

Nursing conferences, in Bucky’s experience, were all the same.  Whether you were attending for education credits for your license renewal, or because you had a genuine interest in the subject, or because, like Bucky and Natasha, they were a get-out-of-work-free card, they were all, inevitably, mind-numbingly dull.  The exact opposite of being a nurse, in fact. There were Powerpoint presentations, speakers who liked the sound of their own voice entirely too much, and way too many jokes about sedation.

 

If you were very, very lucky, there would be a genuinely talented speaker who was able to keep your attention, relay the information in a relatable way, and who was moderately funny.

 

Bucky was not, in fact, very, very lucky this time.

 

Fortunately, there were printed notes to go with all of the presentations he’d decided to attend, and he had a pen to make notes and a Natasha to nudge him awake periodically.

 

Neither the transplant presentation nor the poisonous substances talk proposed anything new or practice-changing to him, and in fact, the transplant presentation cited outcomes from _his own unit_ , so at least he could go back and tell them they were doing something right.  

 

By the time lunch rolled around, Bucky was entirely checked out.  Luckily, Natasha had known him long enough to recognize this.

 

“Sam’s meeting us for lunch,” she announced, standing up and hustling him to his feet, stuffing both of their papers into their respective bags.  “And then you can go sleep off the rest of your hangover.”

 

One perfectly cooked burger, a large order of steak fries, plus a Bloody Mary later, and Bucky felt almost human.  He’d ditched his conference badge, stuffing it down into the front pocket of his backpack, rolled his sleeves up, and unbuttoned an almost indecent number of buttons on his shirt.  Sam had, in fact, agreed to go window shopping with him, and they’d spent a surprisingly pleasant early afternoon touring the streets of downtown Mobile. The sun wasn’t quite so brutal and the breeze was nice. Bucky very nearly enjoyed himself.  

 

He even managed to pick up some nice souvenirs for his ma and his sister, handily dispatching his familial obligations and impressing both of them in one fell swoop.

 

So of course, everything went to shit as soon as they walked into the hotel lobby.  

 

Bucky actually made to turn right back around but Sam grabbed his elbow and forced him to keep walking.

 

On the appropriately-named fainting couch in the lobby was a slim, blond man, face pinched in pain and paler than was probably normal for his already fair skin.  Next to him was what was clearly a hotel employee - probably a manager, given the suit and tie - who looked, if possible, even paler than the man next to him. The possible-manager was holding a wad of paper towels, pressing them against the smaller man’s knee.

 

 

Even from the doorway, Bucky could see blood staining the white paper.

 

“You should go help,” Sam hissed, trying to manhandle Bucky into the main atrium.

 

Bucky dug his heels in, resisting Sam’s pulling.

 

“You remember that time that they asked for medical assistance on a plane, and you _oh so helpfully_ volunteered that Nat was a nurse? And she threatened with one hundred percent seriousness to stab you?”  He waited for Sam’s nod of acknowledgement. “This is like that.”

 

Sam grimaced, but he also didn’t release Bucky’s elbow.

 

“Man, I’m not saying you _have_ to do anything-”

 

“Damn right I don’t,” Bucky continued over him, “nobody’s dyin’ over there.”

 

Rolling his eyes, Sam continued, “-but even I can see that the manager is about to pass the fuck out, and if he hits his head on the table you’re going to have two patients.”

 

As far as Bucky was concerned, he had _zero_ patients.  He was not here in his capacity as a nurse, no one was coding on the floor, and he was both hungover and mildly intoxicated.  It had been a large Bloody Mary. No one could reasonably expect-

 

It was at that moment that the blond- victim? Patient? - chose to look up, and Bucky caught a glimpse of his face.

 

His very, very pretty face.

 

The guy was slim and almost-delicate looking, but his face was all masculine angles and sharp jawline, with wide lips and the bluest eyes Bucky had ever seen.  

 

He also looked anxious and a little put off by the sweating, nervous man to his left.

 

_God dammit._

 

Sam smirked as Bucky shook his arm off and took a few steps forward.

 

He spoke to both men as he approached the couch, not wanting to be intrusive but also trying to be _helpful_ , which was an entirely unfamiliar experience.  Bucky was used to taking charge of a situation, not inserting himself, unwelcome and unasked, into the unknown.

 

He wasn’t a fucking ER nurse, for crying out loud.

 

“I, uh,” he started, looking between Pretty Man and Sweaty Manager, “I’m a nurse, so I just… thought I’d see if you needed anything?”  He winced as it came out as a question.

 

Way to inspire confidence, Barnes.

 

 

It seemed to be enough for the hotel manager, though, because he leapt up from the couch as though he couldn’t _wait_ to get away, all nervous energy and immense relief that literally _anyone_ was willing to take over.  

 

Bucky sighed.

 

“Oh yeah,” the guy babbled, backing away with a haste that he tried to mediate by taking shorter steps, “absolutely, I’m just- gonna go over here let me know if you need anything I was just holding pressure.”

 

And then he was gone.

 

Leaving wadded paper towels half-stuck to the other man’s knee and blood trickling down his shin.

 

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Bucky muttered, moving in closer.

 

“I’m Bucky,” he offered, meeting the man’s gaze.  “I can- I’ll take a look at your leg? If you want?”

 

The blond man glanced suspiciously between Bucky and Sam before he sighed in resignation.  

 

“It’s not a big deal, I can just go take care of it in my room.  I told him that already.”

 

Bucky could see the steady stream of blood leaking around the edges of where the paper towel was clearly stuck to some kind of wound and- yeah, ok he could let the guy run off to deal with whatever it was himself, but also…

 

He was so very fuckin’ _pretty_.

 

And there was something about the way he spoke, his accent maybe, or the way he dropped his vowels, that made Bucky think of home. Not Indiana, but the faintly-recollected Brooklyn neighborhood he’d terrorized before Ma had packed them off to her mother’s house in Shelbyville.

 

Bucky shrugged.  “I mean, suit yourself, but I’m here and I’m happy to look.”

 

The blond looked at his knee and back up at Bucky, who had schooled his face into his patented _I very definitely know what I’m doing here_ look, which worked on residents and patients alike, and Bucky could see the exact moment the other man capitulated.

 

“Yeah, alright, fine.  Pretty sure I just need to hold pressure til it stops bleeding, but go ahead.”

 

Bucky settled himself on the couch next to the other man, who introduced himself as Steve, and began gently peeling back the saturated paper towels.  He hissed in sympathy when he saw the wound, deep scrapes and bleeding and imbedded with tiny pieces of gravel.

 

Sam had taken it upon himself to distract Steve from Bucky’s less-than-gentle ministrations with questions about what he was doing in Mobile and where he was from, but Bucky almost immediately tuned them out.

 

“What the hell happened?” he asked, dabbing at the bleeding, scraped skin.  

 

He practically _heard_ Steve roll his eyes.  “I fell near the trolley tracks.  It’s not a big deal.”

 

Bucky snorted.  “Well it’s gonna get grossly infected and probably scar if you don’t do something, but ok.”  He glanced up and caught the still-nervous manager’s eye. “I need some towels and a bottle of water.”

 

The way the man scrambled to get the requested supplies would have been amusing if Bucky hadn’t genuinely been worried about Steve’s knee.  He almost wanted to ask if the guy had had a recent tetanus booster.

 

As gently as possible, Bucky tried to loosen the large chunks of what he now realized was _asphalt_ ground into the skin while he waited on the water and towels.  Over his head, he could still hear Sam and Steve talking.

 

“So, Steve, are you a student here to audition?”

 

It was Steve’s turn to snort. “No, I’m here with Mehron makeup.  I’ve been doing demos for two days, I have a booth in the main conference center.”

 

All of which meant absolutely nothing to Bucky.  A stack of towels and two bottles of water appeared on the table in front of him and he tuned Sam out again.  It only took half a bottle of water and two hand towels for Bucky to realize this wasn’t going to cut it as far as wound cleansing went.

 

“Hey Sam,” Bucky interrupted, “can you go grab my first aid kit out of my suitcase? It’s the orange bag, can’t miss it.”  He passed over his room key and went back to gently scrubbing at Steve’s knee. He barely noticed when Sam left.

 

“So, you’re a nursing student?” Steve asked, after a few minutes of what was probably - for him - excruciating silence.

 

Bucky barked an unexpected laugh, unable to help himself, and finally looked up to meet Steve’s cool, blue gaze.  

 

“I’ve been an ICU nurse for almost ten years, so no, I’m not a student.”  Bucky grinned to soften the blow as Steve flushed in what was clearly embarrassment.  Before he could apologize, Sam materialized with Bucky’s first aid bag.

 

It wasn’t the type of thing you could buy in a drug store.  It was a custom first aid, zombie apocalypse, could possibly prevent an amputation kit.  Bucky’d stocked it himself with extra hospital supplies, meds, and anything else he could think of that he could use in a semi- emergency.  It usually lived in his trunk, but he’d thrown it in his suitcase for this trip just in case. He and Natasha could be more than a bit accident-prone.

 

Between the sterile saline, tweezers, and gauze, he had Steve cleaned up and neatly bandaged within just a few minutes.  He stripped off the gloves he’d tugged on as soon as Sam had come back, wadding them up with the rest of the trash as he glanced around for a garbage can.  The manager, once again, came to his relieved rescue with a small plastic bag, bundling all the remnants of Bucky’s impromptu wound care out of sight.

 

Sam had talked Steve through the whole thing, but if you paid Bucky cash money he could not have said what the two of them talked about.

 

“So,” Bucky started, and both Steve and Sam turned to look at him.  He felt his face flush, but managed to choke his sudden discomfort down underneath pure professionalism.  “Just keep the bandage dry for today, and then when you shower you can wash it with soap and water or whatever and then cover it again.  Keep it covered til it scabs over. It’s probably gonna scar,” he added, apologetically. “You musta hit the ground pretty hard.” He turned to pack his first aid kit away again before pausing.  “Do you need gauze and tape for it?”

 

Steve started to shake his head, but Bucky could see the uncertainty on his face.  He handed over a few packs of gauze and the roll of tape he’d used to bandage Steve’s knee.  “Just take it, I get it from work anyway, I can get as much as I need.”

 

“Th-thanks,” Steve stammered, accepting the stack of stuff from Bucky.  “I appreciate it.”

 

There was a moment of awkward staring before Sam, thankfully, inserted himself into the conversation.

 

“Hey Steve, listen, if you’re feeling up to it, I think we’re all headed out to Gabriel’s later, feel free to meet us there.”  Sam smiled his patented _I’m trustworthy you should definitely listen to me_ smile, but Bucky could tell the other man wasn’t buying.

 

“Yeah maybe,” the blond man said.  “Thanks for patching me up.” He stood and edged his way away from the couch, moving towards the elevator.  He wasn’t exactly in a _hurry_ to get away from the two of them, but he was also definitely uncomfortable and ready to leave.

 

“No problem,” Bucky answered, rolling his eyes at Sam where Steve couldn’t see his expression.

 

Once the other man had disappeared onto the elevator, Bucky turned back to Sam and said, “If he’s at the bar later, I’ll eat my shoe.”

 

Sam chortled all the way to the elevator, and he only laughed harder when Bucky told him that Steve had mistaken him for a _student_.

 

“Not my fault you’ve got a baby face, Barnes,” was all the other man managed to say between hiccuping laughter.

 

*

 

“Why are you like this?” Bucky asked Natasha as he crowded into the elevator with them.

 

She smirked up at him from under Sam’s arm.  Sam, to Bucky’s deep disappointment, could not have looked more straight and _boring_ if he’d tried, which was a disappointment because he was an obscenely good-looking man.  Unfortunately, his baggy jeans, sneakers and polo shirt were _wrecking_ the vibe.

 

Natasha, on the other hand, was wearing shredded, skin-tight black jeans, wedges, and a cropped white t-shirt that said GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS in rainbow letters.  It would look _amazing_ under blacklight, but Bucky absolutely had no idea what she was trying to accomplish while out with _Sam_ at a queer bar.

 

“We’re branching out,” was all she said, and yep, that was more than Bucky needed to know.

 

She gave his pants a meaningful glance and Bucky looked down to realize that they _fucking matched_ in ripped up, skin-hugging black denim.  Bucky, at least, was wearing a black v-neck, so they didn’t look like twins but-

 

“I’m not changing,” he argued preemptively.  “We aren’t even together. If anyone should change it’s Wilson.”

 

Natasha rolled her eyes.  “Your shoes are hideous.”

 

As a group they trudged to Bucky’s room, his concession to her point because, frankly, his tan boots _were_ hideous, and he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d managed to talk himself into wearing them.  Natasha dug through his suitcase and, unsurprisingly, confiscated one of his shirts for Sam while unceremoniously tossing Bucky’s black ankle boots at him.

 

Back in the elevator, Sam now in Bucky’s navy henley, and Bucky in Natasha-approved footwear, the night seemed off to a promising start.

 

Except that Gabriel’s, the bar they’d banked on because _karaoke_ , and Bucky _slayed_ at karaoke, was apparently a members’ only establishment.  

 

Who even had a members’ only bar in a city the size of Mobile?

 

Gabriel’s, that’s who.

 

The next bar they tried was a complete bust, oddly empty despite the sidewalks being full of people looking for fun and the other bars filled to capacity.  

 

The third bar, however, was less of a bust.  Irish-themed and busy but not so packed that they couldn’t make it to the bar, with live music - or at least, a man and his guitar - in the small staging area in the back.  Natasha made her way to the bar and leaned aggressively until she was noticed - something that, predictably, didn’t take long - to order them drinks. Bucky and Sam moved further into the building and snagged a table within view of the bar but not so close they were likely to get jostled.  There was a harried waitress running around the room, but Bucky figured she had way too much on her plate as it was. So, close enough to the bar to get drinks, far enough to not get elbowed.

 

Soon enough, Nat was back with shots in one hand and beers in the other, carefully balanced between her fingers and on the palm of her hand as she hooked her foot around the empty chair next to Sam.  He eyed the shot and glass bottle she sat in front of him dubiously, and Bucky grinned at him.

 

“Some of us have to work tomorrow Barnes,” he groused, but dutifully picked up the shot.  “Not everyone has the option of showing up looking like a hungover zombie.”

 

Bucky shrugged. “Excuse you, I always look fantastic.  Don’t be such a wet blanket.”

 

Natasha rolled her eyes at both of them and downed her shot of vodka without so much as a grimace.  “ _Za Lyubov_ ,” she intoned, watching Bucky and Sam expectantly.  Sam winced but drank his with a wrinkled nose. Bucky tossed his own vodka back easily, though in a toe-to-toe drinking contest, Natasha would drink him under the table every time without fail.  He wasn’t planning to try and keep up, and he wanted no repeat of this morning’s desperate hangover.

 

At the back of the bar, the guitarist was doing a surprisingly good acoustic rendition of _Bad Romance_ , which made Bucky smile.

 

“Tomorrow is the last day we have to be adults, right?” he asked, smirking at Sam.  “Well, some of us, anyway.”

 

Sam rolled his eyes.  “Yeah, I’m done as soon as the lighting design competition finishes.  Some bigshot is here from New York to do the judging. So probably around four?”

 

Bucky nodded.  He and Natasha had an ECMO conference to attend in the morning which would take about three hours, and it was one of the few presentations that Bucky wanted to be alert and attentive for.  After that was lunch, and then a four hour interactive presentation on rapid assessment techniques that Bucky didn’t _need_ , but thought would be interesting and maybe even fun, if the speaker was any good.

 

“Us too,” he responded, glancing across at Natasha who nodded.  He wasn’t sure if she’d been planning to attend both events.

 

“So low-key tonight,” Natasha summarized, draining the last of her beer.  “Tomorrow won’t be nearly as fun if we’re hungover.”

 

Bucky snorted.  She meant if _he_ was hungover, but it was nice that she’d included herself.

 

“And tomorrow night we party,” she added with a smirk, and Bucky groaned.

 

Saturday morning was going to _suck_.  He felt it in his bones already, like a premonition of pain he wasn’t going to be able to avoid.

 

“I brought hangover remedies,” Natasha reassured him, and at least there was that.  Hopefully she meant the kind of remedies they’d employed as coworkers and friends - IV fluids, nausea medicine, and a metric fuck-ton of tylenol.

 

Bucky finished his own beer and, noticing the waitress busy at another table filled with a group that was _clearly_ too large for the space - at least three of them were sitting on someone’s lap - he got up to head towards the bar.  “Next round is on me, do we want the same?” Natasha nodded, but Sam just waggled his beer bottle, which Bucky took to mean no more shots for him.

 

Wimp.  

 

As he scouted the length of the bar, trying to judge the best place he’d be able to get relatively quick service, he noticed the beginnings of a commotion near the corner.  A few steps closer revealed his patient from the afternoon, the slim blond-haired man. Gone was the relative politeness and semi-timidity Bucky had witnessed, and in its place was what appeared to be self-righteous fury.  

 

Steve - his name was Steve, Bucky remembered - was halfway off of his barstool, pointing an accusatory finger at a tall, douchey-looking guy, who was smiling condescendingly in Steve’s direction.  On his other side, an older, dark-haired man with a sharply-trimmed goatee placed a restraining hand on Steve’s shoulder, which he promptly shrugged off in a fit of pique.

 

Bucky took a few steps closer, close enough that he could make out most of what Steve was saying.

 

“-saw you put something in that drink!” Steve was insisting, still pointing his finger, and getting angrier by the minute.

 

“Relax dude, you didn’t see shit,” Dudebro responded, leaning an elbow against the bar.  “What are you gonna do anyway, poke me to death with your little finger? Mind your own business.”

 

Bucky glanced at the drinks in Dudebro’s hands - one beer, and one that was neon green and served in a martini glass.  

 

If one of them was drugged, Bucky would put money on the appletini.  

 

Decision made, he strolled forward, a little too fast and loose, like he’d been hitting the booze hard already, and elbowed his way between Dudebro and Steve, oh-so-conveniently knocking into the hand holding the appletini and spilling most of it down the ill-fitting polo and saggy jeans the man was wearing.

 

“What the _fuck_ ,” Dudebro half-shouted, anger and disgust overtaking the smug, self-confident look he had been wearing.

 

Bucky widened his eyes into a picture of horrified surprise and grabbed a handful of bar napkins from the stack.

 

“Oh my god,” he said, purposely making his voice breathy and higher-pitched and, frankly, as _gay_ as possible.  “Oh my god, I am _so_ sorry.”  He started patting the napkins across the prominent stain that was spreading down the man’s chest and abdomen, seeping towards his crotch.  While he was at it, he not-so-subtly copped a feel of the man’s less-than-impressive chest and - _jackpot!_ \- snagged a tiny ziplock bag out of his pocket.  “Let me make it up to you,” added, glancing up from beneath his lashes and palming the baggie.

 

Dudebro’s face twisted in disgust.  “Fucking fag,” he spat, and turned to stalk away, abandoning his beer and the nearly empty appletini on the bar.  He was headed for the exit.

Bucky rolled his eyes and looked up, catching Natasha’s gaze.  He jerked his chin and she wove her way through the crowd to his side.  He passed her the little baggie and she strolled off without a word.

 

Bucky turned to signal the bartender.  “Two shots of Tito’s and three Blue Moons,” he said, when she got close enough to hear him, and she nodded as she reached for the bottle.

 

Steve, he noticed from the corner of his eye, was staring at him in furious disbelief.

 

“I had it under control,” the other man hissed.

 

The shots and beers appeared in front of him, and Bucky passed over cash to cover.

 

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, “but this way you don’t end up getting punched in your pretty face.”

 

Steve’s dark-haired friend snorted into the glass of amber-colored liquor he was drinking.

 

“Anyway this will be more fun, watch,” Bucky added, as a flush worked its way up Steve’s throat, though Bucky wasn’t sure if it was fury or embarrassment.  He picked up one of the beers and turned to lean against the bar, his elbows on the edge of the wood and his ankles crossed in front of him. Natasha was rapidly catching up with still-furious Dudebro, who was gesticulating wildly towards the bar as he spoke with the doorman.

 

Bucky couldn’t really hear whatever Natasha said to them over the din of the crowd, but this had happened a few times, and he knew what to expect.

 

Her voice must have carried to Dudebro and the doorman though, because they both turned to look at her, and Bucky smirked as Dudebro did a double-take.  

 

Natasha was always gorgeous, but it was usually an unattainable ‘touch me and lose a hand’ aura of danger.

 

Unless, like now, it wasn’t.  Right now, if Bucky had to guess, she was putting on a soft, helpful, _who me?_ sort of look that was going to _ruin_ this guy’s night.

 

She said something else and Dudebro took a step towards her, holding out his hand.

 

Ah, she’d gone with the _I think you dropped this_ routine.  Smart.

 

Natasha held the little baggie out, still chock-full of those incriminating little green pills, the ones that bartenders, bouncers, and any nurse who’d spent any time moonlighting in the ER - which both Natasha and Bucky had done plenty of, early in their careers - recognized as roofies.

 

Dudebro, who was clearly a complete idiot, took the bag without a moment of hesitation, stuffing it immediately down into his right front pocket.  He stepped up closer to Natasha and said something, as she ducked her head, looking cute and bashful and everything she absolutely wasn’t, but she managed to duck away without looking the least bit awkward.  Natasha gave Dudebro a quick smile and sashayed back a couple of steps, before leaning over and giving the doorman a quick _look_ , one that the man thankfully picked up on immediately, since she’d been sure to hand over the little bag fully within his view.  Doorman nodded, Natasha flashed Dudebro another shy smile, and then promptly made her way back to the bar and Bucky. She reached around him to grab the vodka shots, handing one to Bucky.  Sam got up to join them at the bar and check out the commotion. Natasha casually passed him the last beer.

 

Bucky and Nat clinked their shots and drank them down quickly, and then Natasha chased hers with what was probably half of her beer.

 

Steve and his friend looked both horrified and impressed.

 

“We need to go,” Natasha said without preamble.  “This is about to become the kind of excitement I’m not interested in.”

 

Over her shoulder, Dudebro was still arguing with Doorman, who had his arms crossed implacably, and who, Bucky was willing to bet, had already called the cops.

 

“No offense,” dark-haired man said, in a tone that clearly meant ‘full offense’, “but what the _hell_ just happened?”

 

Natasha raised one eyebrow at him, then turned her gaze from him to Steve.  Her scrutiny lingered on the blond for a few seconds before she turned the two raised eyebrows to Bucky, her lips curled delicately at the edges.

 

“Bathroom,” she said, instead of answering, and ducked under Sam’s arm to head for the back of the bar.

 

Sam sighed and Bucky rolled his eyes.

 

Then Sam took a second look at the brunet man and his face broke out into a wide smile.  “Tony Stark?” he asked, looking excited and pleased, and then it was Bucky’s turn to smile.

 

Every _single city_ he’d ever been to with Sam Wilson, the man ran into some he knew.

 

It was fucking uncanny, is what it was.  And inconvenient.

 

They’d once met a former classmate of his at a Cracker Barrel in Florida, for god’s sake.

 

Tony - if he was Tony Stark - blinked at Sam uncomprehendingly.  Sam held his hand out to introduce himself. “Sam Wilson. We worked on _Civil War_ together!”

 

“Oh!” Tony snapped his fingers and pushed the ridiculous tinted glasses that Bucky had only just noticed further down his nose to peer over them. “The musical thing, Abe Lincoln whatever it was right?”  He barely paused for breath between his words. “Civil War, yeah, that was it. God that sucked. Not the lighting obviously, that was great, but the music. Depressing, not that original. Needed more explosions.”

 

“Okay, but how were you going to light all of those explosions, since you made _me_ hang the entire inventory?”

 

Sam took two steps to his right, closer to Tony and further from Bucky, and the two of them were immediately sucked into an animated discussion of whatever the fuck it was Sam did, leaving Bucky and Steve to their own, awkward devices.

 

“So,” Bucky said, sipping his beer and desperately wishing Natasha would come back.  She’d done this on _purpose_ , he knew.  Bucky had a type, and Steve was, well, it.  “Fancy meeting you here.”

 

“You said you were going to Gabriel’s,” Steve accused, lips pursed like he was unhappy with the revelation that Bucky was not where he said he was going to be.

 

Probably because he’d been avoiding them.  Bucky felt his mood drop. He shrugged.

 

“We did, but it was members only, so we didn’t stay.  This is like our third bar of the night. It’s not exactly a hopping party scene around here.”  

 

“That’s true,” Steve allowed, and he seemed to lose some of his defensiveness.  “There’s supposed to be a drag show tomorrow night, though.” He added the last like a peace offering, and Bucky perked up a little.

 

 

“Yeah?  Sounds cool, where’s it gonna be?”

 

“B. Bob’s.”  Steve grimaced and Bucky laughed.

 

Natasha chose that moment to silently reappear.  She nudged Bucky in the side and hooked her arm through Sam’s.  “Time to go, boys. A little birdie told me there’s dancing a few doors down.”

 

It was literally the only temptation she could have offered that could have convinced Bucky to leave his present company.  That, and the fact that the cops were undoubtedly going to arrive at any moment, and Bucky had exactly zero desire to explain anything he’d witnessed to the police.

 

Plus, Bucky loved to dance.  He’d done ballet as a kid, and moved on to contemporary dance and hip-hop in high school.  He didn’t have high hopes for the club scene in Mobile, but dancing was dancing, as far as he was concerned.

 

“Just lemme get my change,” he told Natasha, and she gave him another one of her knowing smiles.  She paused just long enough to let Sam introduce her to Tony, who in turn introduced her to Steve, and then the two of them were striding out the front door and turning left.  

 

Bucky accepted his cash from the bartender, dropping half of it into the tip jar and pushing the remains of the abandoned appletini towards Steve.

 

“Don’t let the bartender pour it out,” he advised as he shoved his wallet back into his pocket.  The movement pushed his pants down and made his shirt ride up, just a little, and as he watched, Steve’s eyes flickered down to the sliver of skin it revealed. “The cops might wanna test it.”

 

“I won’t,” Steve assured him, his tongue flicking out over his lips, and Bucky was really, really interested in tracing its path.  But Steve hadn’t given him any sort of hint that he’d return that interest or wouldn’t, instead, try to punch Bucky in the face. He was a feisty little thing, Bucky was starting to realize.  

 

He liked it, which didn’t surprise him _at all_.

 

Bucky’d always liked ‘em mouthy and full of sass.

 

“See you around Steve,” Bucky said, leaving his empty beer bottle on the bar and sauntering away.

 

He thought he felt Steve’s gaze following him as he went.

 

*

 

Friday morning was not really any kinder to Bucky than Thursday morning had been.  Not so much because he was as hungover as the previous day - or at least, not quite - but because he was exhausted and sore in a million muscles he was unaccustomed to using.

 

Instead of drinking his way into unconsciousness, Bucky had instead closed the bar on the dance floor with a blur of partners and just enough drinks to keep a buzz going.

 

Of course, closing the bar down had meant two a.m., and now it was seven a.m. And Bucky had to get up and be human for the remainder of the day.  He groaned as he rolled from his side to his back. Bucky needed a very long, very hot shower. And a massage. And possibly a chiropractor.

 

His thirties were not as kind to him as his twenties had been.

 

Once upon a time, five hours of sleep would have been enough to get him through two more work shifts.  Currently, it was barely enough to feel almost human.

 

At least he could reassure himself that neither Natasha nor Sam could possibly be feeling any better than he was.  They’d left the bar before he had, true, but they’d gone with a statuesque brunette that Bucky vaguely recalled being introduced to him as Maria, and if the way Natasha and Sam had both been draped over her were any indication, she hadn’t gone home alone.

 

So they had to be _at least_ as tired as Bucky felt, right?

 

Next to him, his phone buzzed merrily across the wooden nightstand.  Bucky groped for it blindly, holding it close to his face as he peered at the screen.

 

Sam was texting him.  The level of emojis was both unnecessary and totally dispelled Bucky’s theory that the other man also felt like something the cat dragged in.

 

 _Found your boy!!!!!_ Followed by several happy face emojis, the eggplant emoji, the peach emoji, and a winky face.

 

Jesus fuck.

 

Bucky was in the middle of composing a scathing reply when a picture came through.

 

It was Steve, sitting on a stool and leaning forward, face creased in concentration as he carefully applied makeup to someone else’s face.  It was a woman with long blonde curls that were haphazardly tied back out of the way and a steely blue gaze. The side of her face Steve _wasn’t_ working on was pretty, with sharp cheekbones and smooth skin.

 

The other side of her face was _gruesome_ , in Bucky’s uneducated opinion.  It looked very much like someone had ravaged the side of her face with a sharp object.

 

Bucky was actually really impressed with the makeup.

 

He was significantly less impressed with Sam.

 

 _Cool._ He texted back. _Did he fake the knee injury for attention?  I’m hungover, you fuck, let me die in peace_.

 

There was a long moment of the grey ellipsis that meant Sam was still typing, before Bucky got a response.

 

_Rude._

 

Bucky dragged himself out of bed and into the hottest shower he could stand, leaning into the spray and letting the heat and moisture penetrate sore muscles and wash the sleep out of his brain. This time, at least, he’d had the sense to dig his own toiletries out, so he could condition his hair _properly_.

 

By the time he was showered, blow-dried, dressed and ready for the day, Bucky felt almost human again.  Natasha showing up with an everything bagel and coffee just as Bucky was ready to head out the door helped a lot.

 

The rapid assessment presentation being everything Bucky had hoped it would be - engaging, interesting, and informative - helped even more.  The morning’s ECMO presentation hadn’t been anything particularly impressive, but the afternoon had definitely made up for it, and by the time they were done for the day, Bucky was feeling cheerful and ready for an evening out.  

 

He might, he hoped, even run into Steve again.

 

What was the point of a weekend getaway if you didn’t manage at least one hookup, and he was damned if he was going to let Sam fucking Wilson do better than him, even with Natasha as his sort-of wingman.  

 

They had dinner at what passed for Mobile’s most exclusive restaurant, where the waiter butchered the French pronunciation of the wine Natasha wanted to order and Bucky bit the inside of his cheek to keep from saying something completely inappropriate.  The food was surprisingly good, but better was the waiter’s then entire confusion about who, of the three of them, should be presented with the check, and then utterly baffled by Natasha plucking it from his hands and passing him her credit card.

 

Bucky’d had to leave the table for the bathroom to keep from laughing in the poor kid’s face.

 

Afterwards they went back to the hotel so Bucky, at least, could change out of something less ‘business mogul’ and more ‘club ho’ - Natasha’s words.

 

She wasn’t _wrong_.

 

Bucky emerged in a sheer blue v-neck and his tightest, darkest jeans, topped with a black blazer, and enough product in his hair to keep it out of his eyes for at least an hour.

 

Natasha had clearly had a hand in dressing Sam. He was wearing fitted jeans, for once, in addition to an equally fitted grey shirt. It made him look good enough for Bucky to briefly entertain the idea that it’d be nice if he weren’t so militantly straight. But then again, that would mean adding Natasha to the mix, and Bucky was militantly _not_ straight.  Either way it didn’t work out. She’d also changed, into some kind of dark teal top with strategically-placed cutouts and well-

 

In the infamous words of Tyra Banks - ho, but make it fashion.

 

Bucky couldn’t help but be impressed with the three of them.

 

When they got to B. Bob’s, he couldn’t help but feel it had been wasted effort, but whatever.  They looked good.

 

The drag show was… well it was.

 

Ironically, the headliner was a previous winner of _Ru-Paul’s Drag Race_ , which absolutely baffled Bucky.  Shouldn’t that have been some kind of… door opening thing? Like a career launcher?  And yet, here they were, doing drag shows in Mobile, Alabama.

 

He saw at least one girl picking loose threads off of a costume, and someone else threw up in a stage light.

 

He did not see Steve anywhere.

 

Bucky did a shot of absolutely awful well vodka and took himself to the club’s second floor, where there was purportedly dancing.

 

Sam and Nat weren’t far behind him, but Bucky lost sight of them pretty much immediately.  He tossed his blazer over the back of a chair near the dance floor, hoped like hell it would still be there at the end of the night, and threw himself into the music.

 

He lost track of the number of songs he cycled through - most of them late nineties or early two-thousands, with the requisite number of Queen songs interspersed throughout - but eventually he was sweating enough that his shirt was sticking to his back and his hair had lost all semblance of styling.  Bucky was just thinking of taking a break to get another drink when someone slender inserted themselves into his space.

 

 

Bucky blinked his eyes open and came face-to-mulishly determined face with Steve.  Steve, who looked good enough to eat in a white v-neck t-shirt and dark jeans.

 

He grinned, alcohol and euphoria dancing through his veins.  “Steve!” he said, like an idiot.

 

Steve grimaced something that might have almost passed for a smile in the dim light of the club.  “Hi,” he said, lackluster at best.

 

The reaction was… not what Bucky would have expected, but then again, Steve was on the dance floor with him, tentatively swaying his hips under Bucky’s hands.  Bucky went with it, tugging Steve closer, coaxing the sway into something with more rhythm, something a little dirtier.

 

“So,” Bucky said, directly into Steve’s ear where he’d hopefully be heard over the thumping base.  “You come here often?”

 

Steve gave a snorting laugh and some of the tension went out of his spine.  “Not at all,” he said, as though it were some kind of shocking admission. “Don’t do much dancing, actually.  I’m not any good at it, but your friend Sam said if I wanted your attention I’d have to come over here because otherwise you’d spend the entire night on the floor.”

 

Bucky laughed.  Sam was not wrong, but something about Steve braving the dance floor just to talk to him gave him a warm feeling in his gut.  And that Brooklyn drawl was _really_ doing it for Bucky, like whoa.

 

“Anybody can dance, Stevie, trust me.  You just need a good partner.” He said it with a little bit of a leer, and twisted his hips, pulling Steve along to follow.  “And a little rhythm.”

 

Steve stumbled into the roll of Bucky’s hips, bumping their knees together a little, and scowled. “Yeah, I’m clearly lacking in one of those.”

 

“Nah,” Bucky said, confidently.  “I used to teach dance. Trust me, you can do this.  It’s basically dry-humping on a dance floor.”

 

It made Steve laugh again, and a guy that slender and pretty should _not_ sound like that, all low, deep voice and whiskey-drenched laugh.  Bucky swallowed hard around the hot jolt of lust that ran down his spine.  Not to mention that when he rolled his pelvis this time, Steve moved with him perfectly, so that they were sliding against each other deliberately and _oh fuck_.  The song changed to something that Bucky vaguely recognized from the radio, the singer crooning about wanting someone to ruin her life and fuck up her nights, and Bucky knew the song was going to stick with him, crystallizing this moment where Steve was under his hands, cradled close to his body.  

 

Steve was probably going to metaphorically ruin Bucky’s life, with his sass and his pretty fucking face and his determination, and Bucky couldn’t bring himself to regret it at all.

 

It got easier after that, Steve willing to follow Bucky’s lead and leaning into him as Bucky rocked in time with the music.  He’d already been sweating, but with Steve pressed up against his body from chest to thighs, it was positively sweltering, and Bucky wasn’t sure it could all be attributed to the dancing.  He was definitely sporting a little bit of chub in his pants, and he was pretty sure Steve was too.

 

Under his hands, which had traveled from Steve’s waist to other areas - one tucked into his back pocket and the other braced between his shoulder blades - he could feel Steve’s labored breathing and the fluttering of his rapid heartbeat.

 

It occurred to him, belatedly, that Steve was pushing himself to keep up with Bucky’s pace - Bucky who routinely danced the night away and did Orangetheory when he could be fucked to get out of bed for class and who had once agreed to do Time Trials with Clint for a Triathlon he was training for - and he maybe wasn’t necessarily up to keeping that kind of pace.

 

“Let’s get some water,” Bucky suggested, leaning in close to Steve’s ear.  “Seems like you’re gettin’ tired.”

 

Steve’s face turned obstinate.  “I’m fine,” he snapped. “I can do this all night.”

 

“I can think of other things I’d rather do all night,” Bucky said, trying to sound convincing, and it seemed to derail whatever argument Steve was gearing up to have with him. With a sigh, Steve allowed himself to be pulled off the dance floor and herded to the small table Bucky had left his jacket at, where both his friends and Steve’s had congregated - Bucky recognized the blonde from the makeup video, though she’d obviously washed Steve’s hard work off her face.

 

“That’s Sharon,” Steve supplied the blonde’s name.  “She’s a friend of mine and Tony’s. She does lighting.”

 

Bucky made a humming sound of acknowledgement and tangled his fingers with Steve’s.

 

“Here,” Nat said, shoving two bottles of water at them.  Bucky nearly fumbled them, because they were dripping water and icy cold, but he managed to keep a handle on them and pass one off to Steve.  

 

“Thanks,” he said, cracking the water open and downing about half the bottle in one go.  

 

Natasha smirked at him.  “My duty as best friend is dispatched, you’re sober enough to get home alone and I’ve hydrated you.  We’re leaving.”

 

Bucky blinked at her, Sharon leaning easily between her and Sam, most of her weight on Sam’s side, and then he started laughing.

 

Beside him, Steve choked on his own water.

 

“Have fun,” Bucky managed, in between his snickering and pounding Steve on the back.

 

“Oh we will,” Natasha assured him, and Sharon gave him a sharp and knowing smirk.  Sam practically radiated smug, and it made Bucky want to punch him a little bit. They walked out together, Natasha tucked under the much taller Sharon’s arm, and Sam trailing along close enough for it to be obvious they were leaving together.

 

Bucky snorted and shook his head as he watched them.

 

Fuckin’ Wilson.

 

“Let’s get out of here,” Steve suggested, snagging Bucky’s attention and surprising him.

 

“Yeah?” Bucky asked.

 

Steve rolled his eyes.  “What did you think I was trying to accomplish, making a fool of myself on the dance floor.  I wanted your attention and I got it - now I want you to take me back to your room so I can make you forget your name.”  He stepped closer to Bucky, snagging his fingers through the belt loops of his jeans and yanking him forward.

 

“Sure of yourself, huh?” Bucky asked, laughing as he wrapped his hands around Steve’s hips again, pulling them even closer than they’d been while they were dancing.  “Yeah, alright, let’s see what you’ve got.” He leaned down to press their mouths together in a kiss that felt like a promise.

 

The walk back to the hotel was filled with a sort of giddy excitement, to the point where Bucky really wasn’t paying that much attention to their surroundings. Luckily Steve, at least, seemed to have some idea of where they were going.  

 

He was nearly derailed by a hot dog vendor, because while Bucky had left New York behind years ago, he hadn’t left behind a deep appreciation for street food, but Steve gave him a sardonic look and tugged him away.

 

Which, fair.

 

They just barely managed to keep their hands G-rated on the elevator. Bucky tugged Steve against him as he leaned back into the corner of the elevator, delving down to explore Steve’s mouth with his tongue, hot and wet and _wanting_.

 

“Your room or mine?” Bucky asked, when he broke away and realized the elevator doors had closed but they weren’t moving at all because neither of them had chosen a floor.

 

“I’m sharing with Tony,” Steve admitted.

 

“I have my own room,” Bucky said, grinning.  “So I guess that means my place.” He reached out and hit the button for the sixth floor before tugging Steve into his body again, wrapping an arm around his waist and the other one over his shoulders.  Bucky didn’t hear the elevator ding when they arrived at his floor, but Steve did, pulling Bucky out of the elevator by his belt loops and then stalled out when the hallway split off.

 

Bucky cracked a grin and took Steve’s hand to tug him to the right.  He dug the room key out of his pocket and swiped it against the keypad to let them inside.  

 

The door was barely shut before Steve was pushing him up against it, rising up on his toes to fit his mouth against Bucky’s, already reaching for his belt buckle.

 

 _Fuck_.

 

Fuck, Bucky was into pushy partners.  He moaned into the kiss, shoving Steve’s leather jacket off his shoulders and onto the floor.  Bucky’s blazer followed, along with his shirt, and then they were stumbling towards the bed, still kissing as Bucky reached for the hem of Steve’s t-shirt, tugging it up and over his head, ruffling his already-mussed hair.

 

The only light in the room came from the bathroom Bucky had left the sink light on when he’d left the room, and Steve’s blonde hair and pale skin shone in the glow, pale and ethereal, with a familiar, zipper-like scar down his chest.  Bucky trailed his thumb down the shiny-smooth skin.

 

“Heart surgery,” Steve said, breathless and unnecessary.

 

“Yeah,” Bucky said, “that’s kinda my area of expertise.”

 

Steve rolled his eyes and shoved Bucky back, until he fell onto the bed, his legs hanging over the side, sprawled wide.  Bucky laughed.

 

“Pushy thing, aren’t you?” he asked, as Steve crawled over him and straddled his lap.

 

 

“That a problem?” Steve asked, sounding a little bit aggressive and a lot turned on.

 

“Nope,” Bucky said, easily, leaning back so that Steve could have better access to the button on his jeans.  “I’m good with whatever you want.”

 

“I want to ride you,” Steve said matter of factly as he finally got Bucky’s jeans unbuttoned and unsnapped. Working a hand into his briefs, he grasped his cock.

 

“Fuck,” Bucky gasped, arching into the touch.  

 

When he opened his eyes, Steve was giving him a very smug look.  Bucky yanked him down into another kiss, toeing his shoes off and working his fingers into the back of Steve’s pants to gripp his ass.  

 

“Whatever you want, Stevie,” Bucky reassured him, breaking the kiss so he could get at the buttons on Steve’s pants.  

 

It took some awkward maneuvering, but they managed to both get naked, their clothes scattered all over the floor.  They were rutting against each other, slippery with sweat and precome, Steve still on top and demonstrating way more rhythm in bed than he ever had on the dance floor.

 

“Condoms?” Steve gasped, at some point, when Bucky had a hand wrapped around both their dicks, squeezing and tugging.  

 

Bucky groaned.  “In my suitcase,” he answered, lifting his hip to encourage Steve to move, and Steve obliged, shifting to the side to sit on the bed, naked and gorgeous, flushed with arousal.  

 

His suitcase was still where he’d left it on the luggage rack near the closet, and Bucky rummaged around in it uselessly for a few seconds before he remembered he’d stashed lube and condoms in the front pocket at the last minute during his frenzied packing session.  He held them up triumphantly, which made Steve crack a grin and roll his eyes.

 

Bucky crawled onto the bed, leaning over Steve for more of the hot, open-mouthed kisses he was coming to crave, the condoms and lube clutched tightly in his left hand. He was losing himself in the kiss, pressing Steve backwards, when Steve caught him by surprise, hooking his leg behind Bucky’s knee and pushing him with surprising strength, until Bucky ended up flat on his back with an expelled oof.

 

“I’m planning to ride you, remember?” Steve said, reaching for the supplies.

 

Bucky swallowed hard.  

 

Steve on top of him, bathed in dim, hotel room light was an image that wasn’t going to leave him anytime soon.  

 

Steve passed him the lube and Bucky squeezed entirely too much out on his fingers, too busy staring at the man above him to pay attention to his hands.  Steve scooted up, a delicious, slithery sensation against Bucky’s already achingly-hard cock, and made an impatient sound.

 

Bucky grinned.  “Somethin’ you want, Stevie?”

 

“You know what I want,” Steve grumbled, and tugged Bucky’s hand around behind his hip, as though Bucky didn’t know exactly what he was waiting on.  Bucky circled his fingers around the tight swirl of muscle between Steve’s cheeks, pressing tentatively inward with his middle finger, and heard Steve sigh above him, saw his head drop back. Steve watched him through heavy lidded eyes as Bucky worked his fingers into his body, rocking his hips softly in counterpoint to Bucky’s gentle prodding, until he was riding Bucky’s hand, and Bucky felt like he was going to explode if Steve didn’t get on his dick soon.

 

Luckily, Steve was apparently a mind-reader, because he batted Bucky’s hand away and reached for one of the condoms tangled in the bedsheets, opening it to roll over Bucky’s cock.  Bucky hissed at the sensation of cool latex and Steve’s even cooler, thin-fingered hand. And then he arched up with a near-shout as he was enveloped in Steve’s hot-tight-wet body, Steve sliding down smoothly, no hesitation at all.  

 

“Jesus _god_ ,” Bucky said, reaching for Steve’s hips to hold on for dear life.

 

Steve rolled his pelvis, and he and Bucky moaned in tandem.

 

“This is gonna be fun,” Steve promised, sounding satisfied as he lifted himself up and then sank back down in a short, sharp thrust.

 

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed - Bucky would’ve agreed to anything with Steve moving like that over his dick.

 

Steve almost laughed, but he kept up the motion, working himself into steady, fast-paced rhythm.  “Fuck, you feel good,” he told Bucky, bracing his hands on the upholstered headboard and leaning forward, searching for the perfect angle.  Bucky guessed he found it when his mouth opened, soft and inviting, and he let out a low, wrecked noise.

 

“So good,” Steve managed, rolling his hips again.

 

Reaching up to tweak Steve’s nipple, Bucky bent his knees, raising his hips to meet Steve’s thrusts, making everything between them that much harder, that much hotter.  

 

“You too,” Bucky panted, trying to concentrate on anything except the tight heat squeezing his cock and driving him towards orgasm.  “Real fuckin’ good,” he said, letting go of Steve’s hip to wrap a hand around the bouncing, dripping erection between them.

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Steve said, arching his back.

 

“‘M tryin’,” Bucky said, and Steve groaned something that was trying to be a laugh and failing miserably.  “You’re killin’ me here,” Bucky said. “I’m so fuckin’ close, but I wanna see you come - bet you look beautiful when you come,” he was babbling now, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, still jackhammering his hips and jerking Steve off at the same time.  “C’mon baby, come all over me.”

 

With a wordless cry, Steve did, coming so hard that his body seized up, clamping down around Bucky, and painting him white all the way up his chest.

 

“Oh _god_ ,” Bucky breathed, and then he was coming too, yanking Steve down against him as his hips stuttered up in rhythmless, helpless motion, until he was limp and spent beneath him.  

 

“Jesus,” Steve said, emphatically, after a few minutes of them catching their breath.

 

Bucky trailed his fingers over Steve’s spine, where he could feel flat patches there that felt like more scarring and, distantly, wondered what they were from.  “Mmmm,” he hummed, content to lie under Steve’s slight weight and feel blissfully post-coital.

 

“We’re sticky,” Steve complained, after a few minutes, and while Bucky couldn’t exactly argue-

 

“You always this ornery?” he drawled, huffing a laugh.  

 

Steve snorted, but he rolled over and off of Bucky, making him flinch as his dick slid free, but managing to keep the mess confined to their chest and bellies and not on the hotel bedding.  “A little,” he admitted, and gone was the stubborn, bossy man Bucky had brought home. In his place was someone slightly more unsure of themselves.

 

“‘S ok,” Bucky said, twisting to press a kiss to Steve’s slack mouth.  “I like ornery. And bossy,” he added, getting up on wobbly knees to make his way to the bathroom and dispose of the condom.

 

He came back with a warm wet washcloth, intending to help him get cleaned up, but the look on Steve’s face stopped him, and he passed it over instead.   Steve quirked an eyebrow at him, but wiped himself down and handed the washcloth back, neatly folded over the mess. Bucky tossed it onto the tiled bathroom floor.

 

“You stayin’?” Bucky asked, pulling the blankets back and climbing into the bed, holding the sheets up hopefully.  

 

Steve seemed to give it some thought before sliding in between the sheets and letting Bucky settle an arm around his waist.  Bucky sighed into the nape of Steve’s neck and tucked his knees up behind Steve’s an settled in to sleep.

 

*

 

Bucky groaned as he heard the adjoining door in his room creaked open.  He was warm, well-fucked, and comfortable. Except for the bony knee pressed into his bladder.

 

“Go ‘way, Nat,” he mumbled, without bothering to open his eyes.  “Conference is over.”

 

She quietly snorted.  “I didn’t come to wake you, I just need to borrow something from your suitcase.”

 

“Whatever,” Bucky agreed, nudging Steve and rolling both of them onto their sides so that he could tuck Steve up close to his body and pull the comforter up to his ears.  “Dunno what you want outta there,” he added, already drifting back off.

 

“Leggings,” she answered, sounding amused. A few seconds later the door shut again and the lock snicked.

 

“Whazzat?” Steve asked, his voice low and gravelly and Bucky felt a jolt of something that was a mixture of pride and lust.

 

He’d made Steve sound like that.

 

He wanted to do it again.

 

“Nat,” Bucky said, nuzzling into the curve of Steve’s neck and trailing his mouth over the soft skin beneath his ear.

 

“Why’s she borrowing your clothes?” Steve asked, tilting his head to give Bucky better access.

 

“She’s not, ‘s prob’ly for Sam,” Bucky answered, distracted by the naked skin under his hands and mouth.  “She’s always stealin’ my shit for him, ‘cause he can’t dress himself.”

 

“Mmmmm,” Steve agreed, rolling in Bucky’s arms and pressing their mouths together, making Bucky forget entirely about Natasha and Sam.

 

It wasn’t until much, much later, when they were standing together in the shower, kissing and making plans for brunch that Bucky registered that Nat had said ‘leggings’.

 

“She stole my fucking leggings,” Bucky exclaimed, apropos of nothing, and making Steve blink up at him in surprise.

 

“Yeah...” he hedged, clearly confused.

 

“Sam doesn’t wear leggings.  Also, they’re LuLu leggings, they cost a fucking fortune.”

 

Steve shrugged.  “Maybe she stole them for Sharon.  I’m pretty sure she stayed with them last night.”

 

“I’m never getting my leggings back, am I?” Bucky despaired, leaning dramatically on Steve’s shoulder, who shrugged him off.  “Those were my favorite leggings, Stevie!”

 

Steve rolled his eyes.  “I’m friends with Sharon, I’ll mail them back to you.  Her plane took off this morning, so it’s too late to get them now. I’ll see her again eventually, we work together fairly often.”

 

“Stevie, you’re my favorite,” Bucky said, pulling Steve back into the spray and delving in for another kiss.

 

Their rumbling stomachs interrupted a kiss that was quickly evolving into something that was _definitely_ going to lead to another round in the bedroom, and Steve broke away laughing.  “I’m starving and you promised me brunch,” he reminded Bucky.

 

*

 

**10 Months Later**

 

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Bucky grumbled, trying to figure out where, in the 400 square foot box they were calling an apartment, he was supposed to find room for all his shit.  In the miniscule bathroom, the tell-tale sound of his phone started playing its new ringtone, changed not long after his fateful weekend in Mobile.

 

“I can’t believe you made that your ringtone,” Steve answered, amused, not even looking up from the sketchbook in his lap.

 

_I want you to bring it all on_

_If you make it all wrong, then I'll make it all right, yeah_

_I want you to ruin my life_

_You to ruin my life, you to ruin my life_

 

“It’s our song,” Bucky argued, stepping over two boxes, a pile of sheets, and three mate-less shoes to get to the bathroom door.  “Of course I changed it.”

 

 

“I don’t even remember dancing to this song,” Steve hollered back, making Bucky smile.

 

“Hey Ma,” Bucky said, as he slid the ‘accept’ button across the bottom of the screen.  “Yeah, we’re settling into our new shoebox just fine. No, I start work on Monday.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> A million, billion thanks to both ClaraXBarton and Amberlyinviolet, who beta read and cheerled this fic from inception to execution, and without whom I'd have definitely dropped out at least three times. Love you both!
> 
> And again, thank you SO much to Queenoftherandomword42, who worked so hard on the sculptures for the fic and who also offered me endless encouragement - you were a doll! (Pun intended XD)


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